Nobody used the word “fluke” to describe Phil Mickelson’s PGA Championship victory last month, and the reason for that is because Mickelson is one of the greats of the sport, a first-class winner, and a guy who came into Kiawah having won five major titles in his career.
But—you knew the but was coming—Mickelson’s legendary status disguised the fact that when he won at Kiawah to become the oldest major winner in golf history, and the only man to do it past age 50, it was really, really, surpassingly unlikely.
Look back a little farther, and it’s easy to see the Pebble Beach in 2019, which he won, as a sort of last victorious hurrah, after which he officially became “old.” From missing just three cuts in 2018, he missed eight in 2019, then seven more in the shortened 2020 season.
We can’t read the future, we can only try to predict, and if you’re looking at 24 months of results, well, you’d probably go with the overwhelming majority of those results in mapping out how the rest of 2021 and beyond will look.
But most of us who love golf will be rooting for him to beat the odds, and if there’s anyone who can pull it off, it’s him.
Nor is the point here to slander his victory, because the larger golf world was right to avoid the word “fluke” when it comes to someone this good.
Just as his name and stature disguise the unlikely nature of his win, they also disguise the sheer degree of difficulty and the excellence that could only be realized within the smallest possible margins.
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